


Attack of Velaris

by shieraseastar03



Series: ACOMAF [13]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Attack of Velaris, F/M, Hybern, Velaris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 00:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19031269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieraseastar03/pseuds/shieraseastar03





	Attack of Velaris

Rhys and Mor left in the early afternoon to visit the Court of Nightmares in order to return the Veritas to Keir without his knowing, and ensure that the Steward was indeed readying his forces. Cassian had reports that the Illyrian legions were now camped across the mountains, waiting for the order to fly out to wherever their first battle might be and Azriel would go to retrieve more information.

With Rhys and Mor gone, Cassian and Alec came to stay at the town house as they continued to plan their inevitable visit to Hybern. After that first dinner, when Cassian had broken out one of Rhys’s very old bottles of wine so they could celebrate their mating in style, Shiera had realized they’d come to stay for company, to dine with her, and… the illyrians had taken it upon themselves to look after her.

  
Rhys said as much that night when she had written him a letter and watched it vanish. Apparently, he didn’t mind his enemies knowing he was at the Court of Nightmares. If Hybern’s forces tracked him there… good luck to them.

  
Shiera had written to Rhys ‘How do I tell Cassian and Alec I don’t need them here to protect me? Company is fine, but I don’t need sentries’. He’d written back ‘You don’t tell them. You set boundaries if they cross a line, but you are their friend, their High Lady… and my mate. They will protect you on instinct. If you kick their asses out of the house, they’ll just sit on the roof'. 

Shiera scribbled ‘You Illyrian males are insufferable’. Rhys had just said ‘Good thing we make up for it with impressive wingspans’. Even with him across the territory, her blood had heated, her toes curling. Shiera had barely been able to hold the pen long enough to write ‘I am missing that impressive wingspan in my bed. Inside me’. He’d replied ‘Of course you are’. Shiera had hissed, jotting down ‘Prick’.

  
Shiera had almost felt his laughter down the bond, their mating bond. Rhys wrote back, ‘When I return, we’re going to that shop across the Sidra and you’re going to try on all those lacy little underthings for me’.

  
The princess fell asleep thinking about it, wishing her hand was his, praying he’d finish at the Court of Nightmares and return to her soon. Spring was bursting all across the hills and peaks around Velaris. She wanted to sail over the yellow and purple blooms with him.

 

* * *

 

The next afternoon, Rhys was still gone, Amren was still buried in the book and in the meantime while Cassian, Alec and Shiera walked down the streets of Velaris. They were just finishing up an early afternoon performance of some ancient, revered Fae symphony. The amphi-theater was on the other side of the Sidra, and though they had offered to fly her, Shiera had wanted to walk. Even if her muscles were barking in protest after Cassian's brutal lesson that morning. The music had been lovely, strange, but lovely, written at a time, Alec had told her, when humans had not even walked the earth. He found the music puzzling, off-kilter, but… Shiera had been entranced.

 

Later, they were getting closer to the river when Shiera felt… She didn't know what was exactly, she could only grab Cassian's arm as a warning but then she ran and fell to her knees, next to the river. She felt like she would vomit but then only fear took control of her trembling body.

 

The other males arrived running and held her, “What…. What happens?” Cassian asked really worried. Shiera couldn't stop looking at the Sidra by her right, “We have to warn Rhys… Velaris… It's being attacked” she announced, still trembling as the males looked at each other and the back to her.

 

Suddenly, the river flowing beneath them shifted. Not a physical shifting, but… a tremor in the current, in the bedrock, in the skittering things crawling on it. Like ink dropped in water.

  
Cassian and Alec instantly went on alert as they scanned the river, the banks on either side.  “What the hell is that?” Alec murmured and Cassian tapped the Siphon on each hand with a finger.

  
Shiera gaped as scaled black armor began unfolding and slithering up his wrists, his arms, replacing the tunic that had been there. Layer after layer, coating him like a second skin, flowing up to his shoulders. The additional Siphons appeared, and more armor spread across his neck, his shoulders, down his chest and waist. The princess blinked, and it had covered his legs, then his feet.

  
The sky was cloudless, the streets full of chatter and life, Alec kept scanning, a slow rotation over Velaris. The river beneath them remained steady, but Shiera could feel it roiling, as if trying to flee from… “From the sea” Shiera breathed. Cassian’s gaze shot straight ahead, to the river before them, to the towering cliffs in the distance that marked the raging waves where it met the ocean. And there, on the horizon, a smear of black. Swift-moving… spreading wider as it grew closer.

  
“Tell me those are birds” Alec said, “There’s no illyrian patrol that’s supposed to know about this place…” the illyrian declared.

 

Shiera's power flooded her veins, and she curled her fingers into fists, willing it to calm, to steady.  

 

Cassian gaze cut to Shiera and Alec “You are going back to the town house right now” the older male announced. 

 

“I'm staying, I am not a child” Alec declared.

 

“I am staying too, you have trained me, I can fight” Shiera agreed with confidence. 

 

“No. Alec, I know you are not longer a child but it's better if you help in the streets and Shiera… You might be my High Lady but you are only seventeen years old, I can’t… I don’t know how to say it but… You are my nephew and you are my brother’s mate… If something happens to you…” Cassian alleged with fear.

  
The smear of black separated, fracturing into countless figures, too big for birds, far too big. 

 

“You have to sound the alarm...” Shiera begged looking at his hazel eyes, people were there, some were pointing, some were shouting.

  
They’d reached the sea cliffs. Countless, long-limbed flying creatures, some bearing soldiers in their arms… An invading host. 

  
But an Illyrian blade had appeared in Cassian’s hand, twin to the one across his back, a fighting knife now shone in the other, he held them both out to Alec. “Get back to the town house… Right now” he commanded looking at the young female. She most certainly would not go. If they were flying, Shiera could use her power to her advantage: freeze their wings, burn them, break them. Even if there were so many.

  
So fast, as if they were carried on a fell wind, the force reached the outer edges of the city. And unleashed arrows upon the shrieking people rushing for cover in the streets.

 

Alec grabbed his outstretched weapons as his own armor covered his body. 

 

Shiera braided her hair, getting ready but she realized that she wasn't dressed with an armor like the males, she was wearing pink top and baggy trousers.  It wasn't the perfect outfit to fight against an enemy but… It had to be.

  
Cassian lifted his hand into the air. Red light exploded from his Siphon, blasting up and away… forming a hard wall in the sky above the city, directly in the path of that oncoming force.  He ground his teeth, grunting as the winged legion slammed into his shield, as if he felt every impact.  The translucent red shield shoved out farther, knocking them back.

  
Then, the three of them watched in mute horror as the creatures lunged for the shield, arms out... They were not just any manner of faerie, any rising magic in Shiera sputtered and went out at the sight of them, they were all like the Attor. Stone that broke and repelled magic, straight from the unholy trove of the King of Hybern, one after one after one, they punched through his shield.

  
Cassian sent another wall barreling for them, some of the creatures peeled away and launched themselves upon the outskirts of the city, vulnerable outside of his shield. 

  
People were shrieking, fleeing; and Shiera knew his shields would not hold…

 

“GO!” Cassian roared, Shiera lurched into motion, knowing he likely lingered because she stayed, that he needed her and Alec… 

 

The High Lord's son strengthened his uncle's shield with his own power but they knew that they were not going to resist very much. High above them, three of them slammed into the dome of the red and black shield. Clawing at it, ripping through layer after layer with those stone gauntlets. That’s what had delayed the king these months: gathering his arsenal, weapons to fight magic, to fight High Fae who would rely on it.

  
A hole ripped open, the males threw Shiera to the ground, shoving her against the marble railing, their wings spreading wide over the young princess, their legs as solid as the bands of carved rock at her back. 

  
Screams on the bridge, hissing laughter, and then, a wet, crunching thud.

  
“Shit, shit” Alec said. 

  
He moved a step, Cassian and Shiera lunged from under him to see what it was, who it was.  Blood shone on the white marble bridge, sparkling like rubies in the sun, there on one of those towering, elegant lamp posts flanking the bridge…  Her body was bent, her back arched on the impact, as if she were in the throes of passion.  Her golden hair had been shorn to the skull, her golden eyes had been plucked out.  She was twitching where she had been impaled on the post, the metal pole straight through her slim torso, gore clinging to the metal above her.

  
Someone on the bridge vomited, then kept running, but Shiera could not break my stare from the golden queen or from the Attor, who swept through the hole it had made and alighted atop the blood-soaked lamppost.

  
“Regards, of the mortal queens and Jurian” it hissed, then the Attor leaped into flight, fast and sleek… Heading right for the theater district they had left.

  
Cassian had pressed her back down against the bridge… and he surged toward the Attor. He halted, remembering his nephew “Get people out of the streets, as we trained”. Alec nodded. The Cassian's hazel eyes found Shiera’s, his brother’s mate “Go, run home. Now.”That was the final order, and his goodbye as he shot into the sky after the Attor, who had already disappeared into the screaming streets.

  
Around her, hole after hole was punched through that red and black shield, those winged creatures pouring in, dumping the Hybern soldiers, of every shape and size they had carried across the sea.  Across the river, thunder boomed again, and it was not Cassian, or Azriel, who held the other side of the river, but Amren.

 

Her slim hands had only to point, and soldiers would fall, fall as if their own wings failed them.  They slammed into the streets, thrashing, choking, clawing, shrieking, just as the people of Velaris had shrieked.  Shiera whipped her head to the Rainbow a few blocks away, left unprotected, defenseless.

 

She turned her face to Alec, “You know I can help. Please…” Shiera begged. He knew that Cassian would kill him for let her fight and Alec couldn’t look at his father’s face if something happened to his mate because of his fault. But he also knew how brave and smart she was. That powerful young female was their only hope until his father came.

 

Alec caressed her cheek gently, “Please, be careful” he whispered and she gave him a conspiratorial grin. 

 

Cassian would defend the sky, Alec the left part of the city and Shiera the right one. 

 

* * *

 

The princess ran, her memories making her faster. She saw Rhys dancing with Mor in Starfall, drinking with Cassian, laughing with Alec and joking with Azriel.

 

The High Lord of that beautiful city, the male that had given so much for his family, his people… He had suffered so much but now Shiera could see him, a High Lord, a friend, a bother, a cousin, a father and a mate. Never again anyone’s slave or whore.

  
And there it was, a future. The future Shiera saw for them, bright as the sunrise over the Sidra. A direction, and a goal, and an invitation to see what else immortality might offer her. It did not seem so listless, so empty, anymore. And she would fight until her last breath to attain it, to defend it.

 

* * *

 

The street before her was clear, the lone safe passage through hell. 

 

A female screamed inside the artists’ quarter and she knew her path.

  
Shiera flicked her wrists, the iron nails shooting out. She cracked her jaw, her fangs descended and winnowed into the burning and bloody Rainbow.

 

Three soldiers spotted her from up the hill, raced for her, but the High Lady ran faster, back for the river at the foot of the hill, for the singing Sidra. She hit the edge of the quay, the water already stained with blood, and she extended a hand. As if in answer, the Sidra rose. Shiera yielded to that thrumming power inside her bones and blood and breath, she became the Sidra, ancient and deep and she bent it to her will. She lifted her palms, willing the river higher, shaping it, forging it.

 

Powerful, infinite… The power running through her veins. 

 

Watching how the river obeyed her, how she could control it… She felt powerful too, invincible. 

 

That water gift… Her husband had gave it to her and now she would use it to defend her mate's home and to avenge those who had been harmed by Hybern.

 

* * *

 

Those soldiers stopped dead in their tracks as she turned toward them, wolves of water broke from behind the princess.  The soldiers whirled, fleeing, but her wolves were faster, she was faster as she ran with them, in the heart of the pack.  Wolf after wolf roared out of the Sidra, as colossal as the one she had once killed, pouring into the streets, racing upward.  She made it five steps before the pack was upon the soldiers taunting the shop owner.  She made it seven steps before the wolves brought them down, water shoving down their throats, drowning them.

  
The High Lady reached the soldiers, and her nails sang as she severed their choking heads from their bodies.  The shopkeeper was sobbing as she recognized the princess, her rusted bar still raised, but she nodded, once.

  
Shiera ran again, losing herself amongst her water-wolves as she created faster tigers and panthers. Some of the soldiers were taking to the sky, flapping upward, backtracking, so her predators grew wings, and talons, and became falcons, hawks and eagles. They slammed into their bodies, their armor, drenching them. 

 

The airborne soldiers, realizing they hadn’t been drowned, halted their flight and laughed… sneering.  She lifted a hand skyward, and clenched her fingers into a fist, the water soaking them, their wings, their armor, their faces… It turned to ice.  Ice that was so cold it had existed before light, before the sun had warmed the earth. 

 

Ice of a land cloaked in winter, ice from the parts of Shiera that felt no mercy, no sympathy for what these creatures had done and were doing to his mate's people, now, her people too.  Frozen solid, dozens of the winged soldiers fell to the earth as one. And shattered upon the cobblestones.

 

Shiera moved her hands again, creating now fire beasts, she sent them with the water ones, through the air, through the streets, giving the command to kill each soldier they found. As they did, she opened her wings and slit the throat of four more soldiers, then she run and winnowed, in the air and in the land killing them, feeling how their lives ended between her hands, because of her nails.

 

One soldier wielded a sword in front of her, she dodge the first time but then he made a deep cut in her cheek. 

 

Afterwards, another cut but that time the sword had cut her seahorse tattoo, the sign of her marriage to Tarquin. She noticed how blood fell down her cuts, but she didn’t care, the pain only made her more excited about killing those soldiers, she enjoyed how her iron nails cut their skin, how her hands were covered by their blood, how her fangs were sinking into their necks, their black blood in her mouth.

 

She fought like she hadn’t since Rhys was captured, before finding out that she was her mate. And there she was now, his mate and High Lady, helping to save his beloved city, the one for which he had gave everything, he sacrificed everything for that beautiful city.

 

She will kill each soldier she would see, she was ready to give everything to save that wonderful city, to save their home. 

 

* * *

 

They arrived at Velaris and Rhys' heart stopped, his city, his home… Was being attacked. 

 

He saw blood staining the Sidra's waters, people screaming, dead bodies…  One of his worst nightmares becoming true, he had failed, he… He hadn't time to think about how he had betrayed his own people because Cassian and Alec appeared flying, both with their blades covered in dark blood.

 

Rhysand and his son hugged each other fast, he had been so scared if something happened… But he felt relief, knowing that he was fine. The he held his brother by the shoulder, “What has happened? Where… Where is she?” Rhys asked looking around, if Shiera was not with them… “I told her to run back home” Cassian declared but Alec pursed his lips. “Mmm…” he started and Cassian moved his head negating, “No, no, no… Tell me that you didn't allow her to fight” the illyrian begged. “You know how stubborn she is” Alec alleged but then he turned his face to his father “I'm sorry… I know I shouldn't have done it but…” he confessed ashamed.

 

“You both did the right thing… Just tell me where she is” Rhys spoke kindly. But before Alec could answer a fire tiger, a water wolf and a water eagle passed right by their side and killed three soldiers who were ready to kill two females on the street. The animals were violent, they liked killing those soldiers from Hybern and Rhysand smirked as he understood why those feelings seemed familiar.

 

“I guess we know where she is” Mor laughed as she tied her hair in a long golden braid. 

 

“Go, we know what to do” Azriel said to his High Lord, Rhys nodded and opened his huge wings as he flew over his city, searching his young princess. 

 

* * *

 

He killed every soldier that he saw with his blades, in his way to find his mate.

 

“Where are you?” he inquired worried through their bond, he needed her to be save. 

 

Shiera didn't reply and Rhys only saw how her beasts run through their city, how the Sidra was controlled by her but he didn't saw where she was. 

 

“WHERE ARE YOU?” his voice yelling, begging. 

 

* * *

 

Shiera heard him but she needed to focus because she had her next target.

 

The Attor was hers.

 

* * *

  
In the distance, rushing toward her, toward Velaris, a mighty darkness devoured the world. 

 

Soldiers in its path did not emerge again.

  
Rhys… Her mate, death incarnate, night triumphant.

 

* * *

 

Shiera spotted the Attor again, veering toward the sea, toward Hybern, still over the city. When she emerged from wind and shadow, she was right atop the Attor. It shrieked, wings curving as she  slammed into it, as she plunged her deathly iron nails through each wing, right through the main muscle. It screamed, how Rhys had done when the soldiers had shoot him with those ash arrows.

 

That was her vengeance, finally her revenge.

  
The Attor arched in pain, its forked tongue cleaving the air between them.  The city was a blur below, the Sidra a mere stream from the height. In the span of a heartbeat, she wrapped herself around the Attor,  Shiera became a living flame that burned everywhere she touched, became unbreakable as the adamant wall inside her mind. Shrieking, the Attor thrashed against the princess but its wings, with those nails, with her grip… Free fall.

 

She angled her nails over the Attor’s bony, elongated rib cage, but then she placed her nails into his chest, feeling the beating heart under the flesh.  Her nails went deeper. “This is for Velaris” she declared in its pointed ear.

  
The reverberation of steel on bone barked into her hand, silvery blood warmed her fingers and the Attor screamed.  Shiera stabbed him with more strength, blood flying up, splattering her face.

  
“This is for Tarquin” she hissed with poisoned words plunging her nails in again, twisting.

  
Buildings took form, the Sidra ran red, but the sky was empty, free of soldiers; so were the streets. The Attor was screaming and hissing, cursing and begging, as she felt his dark blood on her hand.  She could make out people; make out their shapes, the ground swelled up to meet them.  The Attor was bucking so violently it was all she could do to keep it in my forge-hot grip, burning skin ripped away, carried above them. She could count the cobblestones, see Death beckoning with open arms again, as their reflection in a pool of blood became clear.

  
“And this” she breathed, leaning close to say the words into its ear, into its rotted soul, “This is for Rhys and his family” she hissed squeezing with strength the heart between her fingers. 

 

Wind rippled the blood upon the cobblestones mere inches away, and Shiera cut out the Attor's heart as she opened her illyrian wings, leaving the Attor behind.

 

She landed in an elegant jump next to the lifeless body of the Attor and dug her nails in the heart of her hand.  Shiera had a diabolical smirk on her face as she lifted her chin a bit, feeling how the blood left the heart and how her hand ended up covered in dark blood.

 

* * *

 

They arrived when she was falling with the Attor, Mor covered her mouth as she saw her High Lady in free fall, the others couldn't even move while they heard the Attor screaming. Rhys froze when he listened to her words, why she was doing that, why she felt that excitement, it was her revenge.

 

For Velaris, for Tarquin, for him and for his family… He couldn't be more proud and grateful but he was also terrified, she was falling and he couldn't help her. 

 

However, she ripped the Attor's heart out and landed as she grinned with mischief and satisfaction while the blood fell and then Shiera lighted it on fire, the ashes blowing with the wind.  Then she made a blade with her ice, beheaded the Attor and burned the body as she was still grinning. Rhys noticed how his family was shocked, they had never seen Shiera being ruthless, wanting revenge or her enormous power finally being freed. But he had and he couldn't be more proud of his amazing mate.

 

* * *

 

She turned her face to the Inner Circle, her family and when she saw the astonishment on their faces she understood that they had never thought how aggressive she could be, only Rhys knew it. And her mate… Her wonderful mate, began to walk towards her. She took two steps before he wrapped her with strength in his arms, her own around his muscled back, his lips kissing her dark hair.

 

“Fireheart, fireheart, fireheart…” he whispered.  

 

“I was so scared…” Rhys confessed through their bond, “I’m fine, I'm fine” Shiera murmured with a laugh, trying to calm him.

 

They separated a bit as he touched her cuts, healing them, the one on her cheek and the one on her arm.  Rhys' violet eyes met her green eyes when he healed her arm, seeing how her beloved tattoo had been cut. He knew how much it meant for her so he passed his thumb over the seahorse that Tarquin had tattooed on her arm, as a symbol of their engagement, and completed the part that had been cut. Shiera saw how her seahorse was perfect again and her eyes met Rhys', gratefully.  She couldn't express what she felt with words so she cuddled her mate while kissing his chest.

 

Her icy heart thawed, the fire in her gut was  soothed by a tendril of dark, and the water trickled out of her veins and back into the Sidra.

  
Rhys pulled back, his fingers stroking her hair. People were weeping, keening. But no more screams of terror. No more bloodshed and destruction.  He murmured, “Shiera Cursebreaker, Princess of Adriata, High Lady of the Night Court and the Defender of the Rainbow”.

  
And even as his city wailed, the High Lord of the Night Court held his mate until she could at last face this blood-drenched new world.

 

* * *

 

“Velaris is secure” Rhys said in the black hours of the night, “The wards the Cauldron took out have been remade.”

  
They had not stopped to rest until now. For hours they had worked, along with the rest of the city, to heal, to patch up, to hunt down answers any way they could. And now they were all again gathered, the clock chiming three in the morning.  Shiera didn’t know how Rhys was standing as he leaned against the mantel in the sitting room. She was near-limp on the couch beside Mor and Alec, both of them coated in dirt and blood.

  
Sprawled in an armchair built for illyrian wings, Cassian’s face was battered and healing slowly enough that Shiera knew he’d drained his power during those long minutes when he’d defended the city alone. But his hazel eyes still glowed with the embers of rage.  Amren was hardly better off. The tiny female’s gray clothes hung mostly in strips, her skin beneath pale as snow. Half-asleep on the couch across from Shiera's, she leaned against Azriel, who kept casting alarmed glances at her, even as his own wounds leaked a bit. Atop his scarred hands, Azriel’s blue Siphons were dull, muted. Utterly empty.

  
As Shiera had helped the survivors in the Rainbow tend to their wounded, count their dead, and begin repairs, Rhys had checked in every now and then while he’d rebuilt the wards with whatever power lingered in his arsenal. During one of our brief breaks, he’d told me what Amren had done on her side of the river.

  
With her dark power, she had spun illusions straight into the soldiers’ minds. They believed they had fallen into the Sidra and were drowning; they believed they were flying a thousand feet above and had dived, fast and swift, for the city, only to find the street mere feet away, and the crunch of their skulls. The crueler ones, the wickedest ones, she had unleashed their own nightmares upon them, until they died from terror, their hearts giving out. Some had fallen into the river, drinking their own spreading blood as they drowned. Some had disappeared wholly.

  
“Velaris might be secure” Cassian replied, not even bothering to lift his head from where it rested against the back of the chair, “but for how long? Hybern knows about this place, thanks to those wyrm-queens. Who else will they sell the information to? How long until the other courts come sniffing? Or Hybern uses that Cauldron again to take down our defenses?”.

  
Rhys closed his eyes, his shoulders tight. Shiera could already see the weight pushing down on that dark head. She hated to add to that burden, but said “If we all go to Hybern to destroy the Cauldron… who will   
defend the city?”.

  
Silence. Rhys’s throat bobbed.

  
Amren said “I’ll stay”. Cassian opened his mouth to object, but Rhys slowly looked at his Second. Amren held his gaze as she added, “If Rhys must go to Hybern, then I am the only one of you who might hold the city until help arrives. Today was a surprise. A bad one. When you leave, we will be better prepared. The new wards we built today will not fall so easily”.

  
Mor loosed a sigh, “So what do we do now?”. Amren simply replied “We sleep. We eat”. And it was Azriel who added, his voice raw with the aftermath of battle-rage, “And then we retaliate”.

 

* * *

 

Rhys did not come to bed.

  
And when Shiera emerged from the bath, the water clouded with dirt and blood, he was nowhere to be found.  But she felt for the bond between them and trudged upstairs, her stiff legs barking in pain. He was sitting on the roof, in the dark. His great wings were spread behind him, draped over the tiles.

  
The princess slid into his lap, looping her arms around his neck. He stared at the city around them. 

 

“So few lights. So few lights left tonight…” he let out in a desolated whisper.  Shiera did not look, she only traced the lines of his face, then brushed her thumb over his mouth. “It is not your fault” she said quietly.

  
His eyes shifted to hers, barely visible in the dark. “Isn’t it? I handed this city over to them. I said I would be willing to risk it, but… I don’t know who I hate more: the king, those queens, or myself”.  She brushed the hair out of his face. He gripped her hand, halting her fingers. “You shut me out” he breathed, “You shielded against me. Completely. I couldn’t find a way in”. 

 

“I’m sorry” she whispered, ashamed. Rhys let out a bitter laugh, “Sorry? Be impressed. That shield… What you did to the Attor…”, he shook his head, “You could have been killed”, “Are you going to scold me for it?” she asked in a low voice, then stroked his hair again and said to him, the words the only sounds in the silent, dark city, “I am so sorry… Cassian told me to run home but… He wanted to protect me but when he left, Alec knew that I could help so after I begged him, he finally allowed me. But, please, don't blame any of them, they only wanted to protect me and I was the one who disobeyed. I am sorry”.

 

His brows furrowed, then he buried his face in her shoulder. “How could I scold you for   
defending my people, your people now? When Cassian said that you were at home but Alec said that you were fighting… I want to throttle you, yes, for not going back to the town house, but… You chose to fight for them. For Velaris”, he kissed her neck, “I don’t deserve you”.

  
Her heart strained. He meant it, truly felt that way. 

 

“I am the one who doesn't deserve you, you and your wonderful family. But I am grateful, grateful beyond measure for being your mate” she declared, “I love you”.

  
Rhys shuddered against her and when his lips found hers, she let him lay her down upon the roof tiles and make love to her under the stars.

 


End file.
